MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. Vladimir Zelensky wants to cling to power by any means, so he will not hold a legitimate presidential election in Ukraine, said opposition-minded deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Alexander Dubinsky.
"If Zelensky's team started talking so harmoniously about an election, it means exactly one thing: there will be no real election <...> It's not about voting. It's about a mechanism to retain power," Dubinsky wrote on his Telegram channel. According to him, any potential election will merely be "a facade that preserves the current power structure."
Last week, US special envoy Steven Witkoff made a number of high-profile statements about Ukraine in an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson. He said that Kiev had agreed to hold a presidential election, and that Zelensky and his office chief Andrey Yermak had largely acknowledged that Ukraine would not become a NATO member. Dubinsky said that after Moscow and Washington began to establish direct contact, Zelensky has become an afterthought. The deputy has always maintained that Zelensky will do whatever he can to hold on to power, lest he be forced to answer for his crimes, including military ones.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister (2010-2014) Nikolay Azarov said that holding elections in today's situation, under the current authorities in Kiev, when opposition parties and opposition media are banned, and politicians are in prisons or in exile, will only lead to a continuance of the same regime, which is the main culprit and cause of the conflict. He said that if the negotiations on a Ukraine deal are to be successful, the US will have to guarantee that the Zelensky regime is replaced.
Zelensky's presidential powers officially expired on May 20 last year. As Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Zelensky is no longer the legitimate president of Ukraine, so it is important to understand who to deal with in Kiev to sign legally binding documents. Putin explained that the current Ukrainian leadership's illegitimacy could create a legal dilemma that undermines any future negotiations.